The most recent 20 comments posted to Making Light by Ben Morris:

Show all comments by Ben Morris.

Posted on entry Open thread 113 ::: August 24, 2008, 09:16 PM:
The first print issue of Coilhouse magazine just came out and it has a 5 page excerpt from the upcoming Samuel Delany novel Through the Valley of the Nest of Spiders. According to Delany: "It's not really a science fiction novel — though I wouldn't mind anyone calling it that. Still much of it takes place in our future." I enjoyed the excerpt and am looking forward to the book. Knowing there are other Delany fans hereabouts I figured I'd give a heads-up.
Posted on entry Chimay Ale ::: July 16, 2008, 11:23 PM:
Whoops, didn't preview throughly enough in comment 118. My last sentence should read:

Saying otherwise seems to be liking a beer for some desire to have things that are secret and hard to get, as if those qualities themselves and not the taste make a beer good.
Posted on entry Chimay Ale ::: July 16, 2008, 11:19 PM:
insect_hooves@117: Chimay is a delicious beer. I don't see how it being easily obtainable in any way detracts from that, in fact to me that seems to be a good thing. Saying otherwise seems to be liking a beer not for for some desire to have things that are secret and hard to get, as if those qualities themselves and not the taste make a beer good.
Posted on entry Chimay Ale ::: July 16, 2008, 02:10 PM:
cajunfj40@102: The recommended temperature for many of the stronger Belgian beers is 50 to 55 degrees Fahrenheit / 10 to 13 degrees Celsius. The warmer temps let their flavors through more (cold tends to muffle flavor). If I get one straight from the fridge I'll typically take a small sip or two initially and then wait for it to warm up, occasionally taking another small sip but not really drinking very much of it until it reaches a more preferred temperature (its neat to observe the flavor change as the temp rises).
Posted on entry Chimay Ale ::: July 15, 2008, 10:09 PM:
Chimay is wonderful but my favorite Belgian beer is definitely St. Bernardus Abt 12. It's beer nirvana I tell you, beer nirvana.
Posted on entry "Where do people find the time?" ::: April 28, 2008, 01:36 AM:
This is very cool.

I am left with a tangential question that perhaps someone who has read Shirkey's Here Comes Everybody can answer. Is there a specific meaning behind titling the book with a Finnegans Wake reference? Here Comes Everybody being a phrase of importance within that book. My inner Joyce-nerd is curious.
Posted on entry Open thread 101 ::: February 11, 2008, 11:52 PM:
Chopin's Fantasie Impromptu played on electric guitar and banjo (among other instruments). If that isn't wonderfully evil enough they turn the last third of it into a metal song.
Posted on entry Open thread 101 ::: February 10, 2008, 06:17 PM:
A great blue heron would often take up residence around the house I grew up in, we had a small pond and a neighbor had a larger one. Watching a heron take flight never loses its appeal, they are wonderful creatures.

Anyone get a chance to read the Firefly novel Steven Brust posted on his website last week? I am in the middle of reading something else but the temptation to put that aside is hard to resist, Brust's books are so much fun.
Posted on entry The object produced through suggestion ::: December 05, 2007, 03:00 PM:
re 122: Buckaroo Banzai itself borrowed Yoyodyne from the Thomas Pynchon novels V. and The Crying of Lot 49.
Posted on entry The object produced through suggestion ::: December 04, 2007, 08:43 PM:
Well this isn't really one either since its not an independent product. In Futurama the characters are often watching a show "Everyone Loves Hypnotoad". As an extra on the DVD of the new Futurama movie Bender's Big Score there is an entire full length episode of "Everyone Loves Hypnotoad".
Posted on entry The object produced through suggestion ::: December 04, 2007, 04:22 PM:
I hadn't actually read Where's My Cow?, only Thud! and had assumed it was more or less exactly like described in Thud!. The fact that its not, and that Vimes shows up makes me much more inclined to read it (there can never be enough Vimes, such a great character).
Posted on entry The object produced through suggestion ::: December 04, 2007, 04:01 PM:
Well, I'm not sure how much this one counts since the book it was depicted in came out only a couple weeks before it did, but there is the children's book Where's My Cow? that was first depicted in Terry Pratchett's Thud!
Posted on entry The object produced through suggestion ::: December 03, 2007, 11:15 PM:
"Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius" is so amazing. Not only is it my favorite Borges story but its probably my favorite short story period.

Hmm...ok well actually thinking about it a little more it probably ties with Gene Wolfe's "Redwood Coast Roamer" and James Joyce's "the Dead" for that title.
Posted on entry Webcomics follow-up ::: December 02, 2007, 08:03 PM:
Also good is Copper (a comic about a boy and his dog and wonderfully drawn oft fantastical settings) and Perry Bible Fellowship (which is the best absurbist humor I've seen in webcomic form).
Posted on entry The Vanishing Gibson ::: November 26, 2007, 10:19 PM:
Have to agree with the people who dislike lagers, I love ales though (especially dark Belgian ones, St Bernardus Abt 12 = happiness).

As far as liquor goes I can generally find something I like in all the major categories except for tequila. My favorite would have to be brandy, nothing I have drank do I enjoy as much as a good armagnac or cognac.
Posted on entry Doris Lessing wins the Nobel Prize in Literature ::: October 11, 2007, 03:38 PM:
Well, Harold Bloom lists H.G. Wells, John Cowper Powys, Mervyn Peake, Ursula K. LeGuin, Thomas Disch, David Lindsay and John Crowley in his Western Canon so it doesn't look to me that he has anything against science fiction or fantasy. Also the only piece of fiction he seems to have written (The Flight to Lucifer, a sequel to Lindsay's Voyage to Arcturus) is fantasy.

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